Duh

Idiot:

President Bush expressed misgivings Thursday for two of his most famous expressions: "Bring 'em on," in reference to Iraqis attacking U.S. troops, and his vow to get Osama bin Laden "dead or alive."

During a roundtable interview with reporters from 14 newspapers, Bush acknowledged that his tough language "had an unintended consequence."

On July 2, 2003, two months after he had declared an end to major combat in Iraq, Bush promised U.S. forces would stay until the creation of a free government there. To those who would attack U.S. forces in an attempt to deter that mission, Bush said, "My answer is, Bring 'em on."

"Sometimes, words have consequences you don't intend them to mean," Bush said Thursday. "'Bring 'em on' is the classic example, when I was really trying to rally the troops and make it clear to them that I fully understood, you know, what a great job they were doing. And those words had an unintended consequence. It kind of, some interpreted it to be defiance in the face of danger. That certainly wasn't the case."

In the week after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush was asked if he wanted Bin Laden, the terrorist leader blamed for the attacks, dead.

"I want justice," Bush said. "And there's an old poster out West, that I recall, that said, 'Wanted, Dead or Alive.'"

Recalling the Bin Laden remark, Bush said Thursday: "I can remember getting back to the White House, and Laura said, 'Why did you do that for?' I said, 'Well, it was just an expression that came out. I didn't rehearse it.'”

It’s impossible to tell anymore whether he’s really this dumb, or if playing dumb has just become a convenient excuse for foolhardy behavior.

It’s also interesting that this expression of misgivings only happened after a video surfaced making it all but impossible for him to ignore how jaw-droppingly stupid those things were to say in the first place. I guess back when he asked during the debates if he regretted anything, acting like a dime-store cowboy in the face of real danger to our troops didn’t occur to him.